Time to get a bigger fish tank

Yes, this blog is little out of the characteristic of this site. But I thought I will share my personal activities as well when I can. I had a fish tank for quite some time now. And my 5 Koi living a happy life in there. Last week, I had 2 of my older fishes bite the dust. It just happened in matter of minutes. In the morning they were swimming around and after 30 minutes I see them up side down. Oh well, I should have seen it conning. Actually I did sense that something needs to change in the fish tank quickly before something happens. Here are some signs that you may want to look for when your fish tank needs some love.

• Water filter pump stopped working every other day. That is a sign of:
  • Fish are generating more waste than than filter can handle.
  • Fish are being over fed so that there is lot of food left in tank that is making its way to filter and then clogging it.
  • The pump itself is giving in and probably time for clean up or replace some part or the other.

Surely keeping 5 Koi was not an ideal situation in a small tank considering that Koi are usually kept in ponds. And with 2 of the fishes growing rapidly, it was eventually going to happen. What happens is that when you have more fishes in the tank, Ammonia level starts climbing rapidly if the filter is not strong enough to recycle and clean the water. Again there is an optimal level of fish to tank size ratio.

So I went ahead and got a bigger fish tank now. And also reduced the number of fishes as well. Here are some of the lessons I learnt along the way.

• If you are not fish expert, ask the person at store about how many fishes can live X number of gallons. And only keep that number and probably less to start with to figure out if your tank can have another fish or two without disturbing the eco-system in there.
• Always install a water pump that can handle more than capacity of your tank. Yes, that extra capacity for the times when conditions become less than favorable and your fish may die because your pump could not handle that extra waste because it was just at it limits.
• Do not over feed the fish
• If water in the tank starts getting dirty too fast, its time to check your pump and filter.

Hope you can find some useful tips from my experience to keep your fish healthy and enjoy they beauty.